Vita Memory Card To Pricey?

T-Hill writes: With a ton of discussions taking place regarding the price of the Playstation Vita memory cards I figured I would throw my two cents in on the subject. USB flash sticks and memory sticks for cameras are very common to the average consumer but has anyone noticed that the price between the regular memory sticks and the Vita’s are not that different.

keep crying.... sounds like these whiners didnt buy their own PSP memory back in 05.... I would be pissed to to know mom wont buy my "pricey" memory anymore.... 80.00 for 256 in 05. Even with my shit job this isnt pricey...

all flash memory is not created equal. the vita memory cards are very high performance. if the vita just used micro sd cards there would be people that would use the slowest ones available. this could prevent downloaded games from working properly. that said, the vita cards are still a bit overpriced.

I would prefer the memory to be cheaper, but i think the main problem with vita concerning memory is the lack of a packed in memory card with each new vita.

Most games will require a memory card to even start up, not including even a small card, say 1gb, with every vita was a terrible decision and it's something that will slow the vitas growth during its first year and will keep on doing so until sony pack a card in with every vita for no additional cost.

Depends how you look at it, An extra $20 is hardly going to break the bank. You're just not getting a lot of storage for the money is all, but 4GBs should be more than enough for updates, game saves and maybe an occasional demo or something.

If they were priced the same as a nomral SD card then everyone who buys a vita would be able to buy an extra game with their console ( if you buy a 32gb SD card. That is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

But you've also have to look at Class/Brand. Imagine all the articles we'll have about Vita DD games being too slow or games not saving properly.

A decent brand 32 GB with good reviews will run around $40-$50. Yes, it's about 100% increase to make it sound more extreme.

While I can see how people are turn off by the price initially but thinking back to my PSP at launch, the pricing structure then and now hasn't changed. In about a year, the prices will fall, and in about 2 years, the prices on the memory cards will be almost irrelevant to arguments. So as an early adopter, it's a price to pay.

So because the card will come down in price...that somehow justifies the doubling of the price of them based on nothing at all?

Flash memory has gotten exponentially cheaper since the PSP, if the pricing structure is the same, then something is very wrong.

Sony lowered the value of the Vita by not including a memory card ( and I understand why ) but to then go and double the price of them is self sabotage.

Right now to get a starter kit, a wifi vita and an 8gb card it would cost me around $450aus. For reference I can buy a 320gb PS3 for $320...which includes a blu-ray player and a wireless remote.

Sony F-ed up with the pricing bad. People can claim it's got value because of the hardware. But given that launch games like Uncharted Golden Abyss are running at 20% lower than the vitas resolution and also dropping down to 20 frames frequently...it's safe to say the hardware is not as good as people are claiming. I just don't see the value in the cards or the justification for the console price. A 3DS is $100 less and it comes with a 4gb card...

BTW don't mistake this for me saying the 3DS is better ( as I know people will ). I owned one and sold it, no games = no fun. But it certainly has more value for those who do want it's games library.

It all depends on how you look at it I guess. It would be nice if they were cheaper but I have no problem paying the price now for them. I have the First Edition Bundle, 32GB Memory card and Uncharted: Golden Abyss pre-ordered at Gamestop (all paid for). I don't have any trouble paying the price to be an early adopter but that's just me. I can see the other side of it too.

As far as I understand it, none of the media on the market could keep up with AMD's quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, so they had to craft a high speed, high capacity format that would do the job.

From a consumer standpoint, I get it...and the pricing seems fair, all things considered. You simply cannot compare memory measurement across numerous media and logically expect it all to run the same price, especially new and proprietary formats.

I don't know why I said AMD...that was a complete missquote. The rest of my reply is on board regardless of who manufactures the chipset. The fact remains that the memory needed to match the speed and available formats weren't testing where Sony had liked.

While that may be possible, I highly doubt it as you can get Class 10 16GB microSD cards for $20, which have a write speed of around 10MB/s and a read speed generally between 17-20MB/s, roughly 2x faster than the Blu-ray drive in the PS3.

I think Sony should have stuck with the Memory Stick Duo they are widely available and cheap. But if the new memory card is to fight piracy guess people have to by them. Just hope 4 gig is ample enough with the games and hopefully the games do not have a big save file to them or a 4 gig might get you two games with DLC added.

Not that they are "to pricey" but they don't include a cheap low capacity, not even a 1GB stick, standard in the box. This could lead to plenty of things that could go wrong. It could lead to less sales because you're buying a system and a game, and with a good chance, still can't play it unless you also buy a sold separately device costing at least another $20. You don't know how many non-gamer parents buying their kids this device for their birthdays or Christmas would understand the need of a memory card, because they're uninformed and ignorant of the fact, but lets face it they make up a sizable portion of its buyers.

I am not complaining about the prices at all, as they aren't too expensive. Want expensive? Look at MS proprietary hardware and what's inside a MS HDD is a standard, cheap 2.5 inch SATA used in PS3s and laptops. You're paying a premium for its shell. But besides the point, from a business perspective it's important to have my product ready to play out of the box if I want it to sell to my expectations, common sense. Why am I saying you'll need a card to play the game? According to Famitsu, not only some games require it to save data, but to actually play it.